The first Aliyah, Jewish people moving to Israel, as a nation, was after forty years in the desert. It would've been sooner, if the people didn't listen to the spies. But Jews love not listening to their rabbis. They brought back huge grapes, and people were scared. Big fruit can be frightening. I too would've been worried about staining my shirt.
Until recently, American Jews have remained scared to move to Israel.

Aliyah started building up in America when the parents began sending their kids to Israel to check out the land in the 1980s. They sent their kids to Jerusalem. The Yeshiva students went up in Jerusalem, and stayed there. A group of Yeshiva kids came back to America with a huge shawarma. One of the dads saw the size of the shawarma and said, 'We're moving to Israel.'

A few years later, in the 1990s, word started spreading around the New York area that the laffas (Eish Tanors) are huge. The Jewish people were inspired and they said, 'We will not let huge portions keep us out of the Holy Land.'
​They were clusters of shawarma. To see their Yeshiva kids, coming home after their year in Israel, carrying poles with clusters of shawarma was such a miracle. Kedem was discussing whether they should change their logo to a picture of men carrying a pole full of huge clusters of shawarma.
The conversation of mass Aliyah continued, until one prominent figure in Teaneck said, 'We must move to Israel. The land that God promised us, flowing with chumus and tachina... It's a land flowing with chumus and tachina, and shawarma.'

Many Yeshiva kids were stuck, as their parents purchased one way tickets, and the prices went up. So, parents had to wait till after Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day, to receive the news, when the price of tickets went down. 
More Yeshiva kids came back to America and confirmed, 'We are huge in their eyes. They are much smaller than us. We are very heavy, and we eat too much.' Discussion grew, as many students spoke out, 'The people who live there eat salad.'

The anti-Aliyah movement said, 'There are Israelis there. They know how to bargain much better than us. And they eat salad.' Then the Jewish American said, 'They live in New York and Florida too. We can do it... I believe there are less Israelis in Israel.' And so they made Aliyah.

And then Nefesh BNefesh started, and people decided to make Aliyah, because they paid you to do it. There was much argument, for there was a chance to bargain. As the Oleh said in the meeting, 'And will I not spend another twenty thousand dollars in Israel. You should give it to me.'
Once word got out that you don't have to pay for your child's Jewish day school education, American Aliyah reached an all time high. 
Americans are now spending more money on shawarma than ever before. And they are the heaviest people in Israel.

How did staying up all night become a tradition on Yom Yerushalayim, Jerusalem Day? That is a good question.

The first people who stayed up all night on Yom Yerushalayim were those devout students who came to learn Torah in Israel in 1967. They thought it was Shavuot. Yom Tov Sheni Shel Galuyot, the second day of the holidays that Jews celebrate in the Diaspora, had them all discombobulated (a term used a lot in the 1960s). They heard there was a holiday at the end of the Omer, and they thought to celebrate Shavuot the right way, staying up all night and going to the Kotel.
The rabbis caught the devout pupils and let them know that Shavuot is a week away, and that they miscounted the Omer. One of the pupils responded, 'We lost count of the Omer weeks ago.' The other Talmid said, 'I stopped counting with a Bracha after the second day.' And the rabbis knew they had done a good job with these Talmidim.
When these trailblazers of the late ‘60s noticed all the religious Jerusalemite Jews driving, they understood that their rabbis were correct even though they speak English, and it wasn't a Torah holiday. First, they questioned if the Jews were in their cars to flee the war, but the Six Day War had ended. That was another argument. Some people thought it was a six-year war. The military insisted that it was called the Six Day War because they stopped fighting after six days. The political arguments and fighting in the Knesset lasted six years, causing for the confusion.

Dumbfounded Students
The students still didn't understand. The pupils asked what the day was, and the rabbis told them it was a day to celebrate the reunification of Jerusalem. The students didn’t understand, as Jerusalem was already unified. They argued that they could go anywhere in the city. The Yeshiva students were forced to learn about the military and what history is, and thus became heretics.
Discussions of how long two thousand years is took place. That got nowhere, as the Jewish people decided to agree to disagree.
The Talmidim were still trying to figure out why there was another Aliyah LaRegel, going up to Jerusalem for the holiday, if this wasn't a Regel. Yet, the rabbis said, ‘This is a holiday, and Jerusalem is part of the name. So, you go up to Jerusalem. Jerusalem. Jerusalem.’ The students didn’t know how to take this. To quote Menachem, 'Rabbi. There are so many holidays in the Torah. I've already lost my last three jobs due to holidays. I don't think I can take more days off for another holiday.' So, the rabbis all agreed that you can shower on Yom Yerushalayim. The rabbis also declared that you can work on this day, which is why nobody works on Yom Yerushalayim.

The Rabbis Insisted
The rabbis explained that it's because of this day that we can go up to Jerusalem for the holidays, so they insisted on the holiday. And the rabbis started to give speeches till late at night, at Merkaz HaRav, to continue to convince people that this is an important day. Thus, every year, we start Yom Yerushalayim by listening to speeches by rabbis at Yeshivat Merkaz HaRav; the people need to be re-convinced every year that Yom Yerushalayim is an important day.
The students were confused by having to listen to rabbis. To quote Menachem again, 'This feels like Shavuot.' So, they decided to be safe and to stay up all night, like on Shavuot, and go to the Kotel. They didn't learn. Though, it was still very meaningful as they stayed up all night.
The students still had questions. 'How is it a holiday if we can shower?' The rabbis had no answer. They just knew how bad the people smelled from walking to the Kotel, and they didn't want to have to deal with students coming up to ask questions, smelling real bad. The rabbis then reiterated the Yom Yerushalayim tradition of going to the Kotel, and 'you can't shower at the Kotel washing stations, as the basins are too small to bathe in.'

Arguments of Tradition Continue
It turned out that walking was big in the '90s and started to die out in the early 2000s, until 2018 when Jewish people thought that it would be a great tradition to walk to the Kotel on Yom Yerushalayim, to show their love for Jerusalem and to get in steps.
Health is very important. To quote the mayor, 'Obesity is the new war of Jerusalem.' Everybody hates that mayor for being the cause of baked falafel balls. As they used to walk from Merkaz HaRav, larger groups started walking from the entrance of the city to the Kotel. And the tradition thus remains of walking to the Kotel on the night of Yom Yerushalayim, as the traffic is too bad to take a car.

Why Not Sleep?
Ever tried sleeping at the Kotel?! Staying up all night began once they realized how uncomfortable it is to sleep on Jerusalem Stone. 
I once heard of a man falling asleep on Jerusalem Stone, at which point they started the tradition of thousands of Zionistic Yeshiva kids dancing all night. They even started bringing bands. You can't sleep through that. They take out flags. Bands are playing. It's Gezel Sheyna (stealing sleep), and stealing sleep is forbidden. 

Why Not Go Home?
The dancing would go till 3am, at which point there’s no way for these kids to get home. Nobody thought that part out. Thus, you have the Yom Yerushalayim tradition of staying up all night at the Kotel and homeless shelters in Jerusalem.
There were heretics who claimed that staying at the Kotel all night was not important. Once the deniers of all night Kotel staying got the Kotel, they realized that they left their cars at the entrance of the city.  To quote Shmulik, who proclaimed that deniers should also keep the tradition, 'That's too far.'
When they noticed it was after midnight, and the streets were closed, due to people walking, they had no idea what to do. They couldn't catch a cab, so they decided to stay at the Kotel.

Kids Stay Out This Late
The kids who got caught in the flow of the dancing stayed out all night and realized their parents didn't care. Which is how underage drinking became a tradition on Yom Yerushalayim. It took the rabbis much convincing to get their pupils to not read the Megillah on Yom Yerushalayim.

Now there are thousands of Jews staying up all night at the Kotel on Erev Yom Yerhsalayim, and nobody showers.

Next year we will discuss the history of the Yom Yerushalayim Flag March and the flag shortage of 2013.

The Torah taught us (Shemot 13:8) 'And you shall tell your son on that day saying...' So, around 3,500 years ago, every Pesach, the parents started telling their children the story of the Jews leaving Egypt. A great movie was made, and they kept on telling their children the story. It got to a point where they even had Mariah Carey and Whitney Houston perform a song, just to get their kids to listen to the story, but they still had to tell the story every Pesach. The only issue is that the kids didn't understand any of it, because it was in Hebrew. Nonetheless, the parents still told the story.
For many years, they asked why it only said 'boys,' until a brilliant rabbi said 'boys means children.' And the feminist movement began with girls staying up for the Seder. That's a historical side note. We will speak about how many women were bothered by this act of feminism, as they wanted to head to sleep. To this day, many women are anti the feminist movement, due to the extra work they've caused.

Many parents started telling their kids about the story of the Exodus right after Purim, to get their kids to help them clean the house of leavened bread, Chametz. And the kids started asking, how cleaning windows had anything to do with Chametz. So, parents had to make up another story about how windows in Egypt where very clean, and how they also cut their grass and took out the garbage for their parents in Egypt.

The original Seders were about telling the children stuff, as that was the commandment. Very quickly, the parents realized that kids have questions, and that ruined the Seder. The only questions the adults had was, 'How many questions do kids ask?' They wanted to ask Moshe, but they were afraid he would hit another rock. (Which is how the theory of the Pesach Seder being a punishment to parents, who would've been bothering Moshe with annoying questions, came about. Now, at the Seder, the parents have to answer questions. Not many support this theory, but there is no doubt that most of the congregants in my shul would've bothered Moshe; Moshe would be stuck answering questions about rent going up, and that is not fair to Mosher.)
Then, this new idea of what they call 'education' started up in the year 1296 BCE. This was where parents decided that they should not have to teach their children. So, they gave over that job to other people, called teachers, that they can yell at and blame for their children being dumb.
This new way of teaching marked a paradigm shift in parenting. Within three months, all Jewish parents took to this new way of teaching their children. Parents were so happy to not have to see their kids in the house, they were even willing to spend thirty thousand dollars a year. In those days, it was 6,000 deben, or 8,000,000 shekels. The parents were fine with it, as long as their children were out of the house. And that's how private schools began.
They made the teachers answer the questions. Kids asked questions and then the teachers answered the questions. The new wave of teaching, through education, had the children testing the teacher. The parents were fine with it, as long as they could blame the teachers and scream at them. 

On the Seder night, the teachers had off. They called it vacation, even though they didn't go anywhere. They couldn't afford to vacation. The teacher's salary was so low back then, that when all the other families were vacationing, the teachers had to stay at home to celebrate. Even so, the teachers had a respite from teaching. The parents had no idea what to do. The parents were still stuck telling the story of the Jews leaving Egypt, as the commandment was to tell it on that night.

For many years, they tried telling the story, but they kept on getting interrupted by their children. This whole idea of education started killing the evening of decent adult conversation about how to purchase slaves.
After many years of trying to silence the children, and trying to put them to sleep with songs like 'Avadim HaYinu' sung to a monotone, they realized there was no way out of it. The kids weren't going to bed, and they now had questions.
The parents couldn't control the questions. And the more the parents supported education, the more questions the kids had. The most asked question was, 'Why do I have to go to school?'
Even when the parents made the Seder more fun and friendly, the kids asked. That's how the tradition of kids asking came about. The rabbis realized they couldn't stop the kids, so they made it a tradition. The community said, 'Let the kids ask the questions.' At this point, many kids stopped asking questions. That lasted for a week, before they realized that this wasn't a reverse psychology ploy. Then, they started asking more questions.

When the Seder came, the questions didn't stop. The kids were happy to finally spend time with their parents, and the parents were mad. 'Why is there a Seder?' 'How many Jews were in Egypt?' 'Why are we going to Miami for Pesach and not Egypt?' Even questions about why there is a Seder were asked by the kids who were learning about existentialism. That was when philosophy was banned in Yeshivas and Jewish day schools.
Everything was a question. They saw ten plagues that made no sense. So, they asked, 'How are puppets, Styrofoam balls and plastic jumping animals plagues? They seem so fun.' And the kids killed a good time with their questions. 
Then masks came out and they thought the ten plagues were extra fun. So they started asking how Styrofoam balls can hurt anybody when they have a mask on.

So, the parents decided, along with the rabbis that they'll ask the questions for the kids. To quote Rav Mendel, 'That will shut them up.' So they came up with the Mah Nishtana. 
None of the kids cared about the salt water. They didn't even taste it, as they skipped the dunking in salt water. To quote my niece, 'The children made a decision to not eat anything that was not sweet.' So, the salt water dunking question made no sense to them. Now the kids ask questions on the questions.
Even worse, the kids now give Divrei Torah on the questions. They ask questions on the questions, and answer their questions with more questions. This tradition was developed in 1988, around the time that parents started asking themselves if sending their kids to Yeshiva was a good idea

The Mah Nishtana is a beautiful tradition to this day, and the kids have no idea what it means. The children get up there and sing the song. The parents see how poorly their kids read, and how they don't even know all four verses, and they scream at the teachers for not doing their job.
To punish the teachers  for not being around for Pesach, the schools have to now host a pre-Pesach Model Seder, where kids are discouraged from asking questions.
And now, every year, when it is time for the Seder, the parents relive the pain of Egypt.

In the times of Megilat Esther we were commanded to 'send food portions, man to his friend.' Known as Mishloach Manot, this is how we are commanded to celebrate Purim, along with gifts to the poor and more food for us. (Esther 9:22) 'Days of feasting and happiness, sending of portions to one another, and presents to the poor.' It all means food. As the rabbis realized very quickly, Jews can only be happy with food. The entertainment will be complained about, but the food will be complained about and enjoyed.
So the Jews decided to send food to one another in the form of wicker baskets. Wicker is very easy to clean if there is a spill. There were a lot of spills back then, as packaging wasn't good in the BCEs.
And then there was Easter. So, all Jews started buying whatever they could find on sale, to give to their friends. Walmart had a whole section of bunnies and chocolate, and that is how we see chocolate eggs in our Mishloach Manot, along with Kinder eggs. They then decided to also give the tiny bottles of alcohol they were able to steal from ELAL. And then Haddar started selling Hamentashen at Costco. Thus, the Hamentashen people get in their Mishlaoch Manot. Unmarked Hamentashen, made by Haddar, the new taste of kosher, hand pulled from the plastic package, in sandwich bags. Unpackaged, making crumbs in your Mishloach Manot, as in ancient times. And then people started receiving a lot of Mishloach Manot, and they tried to figure out how to save it for the following Halloween, or to hand it to a neighbor they didn't think about when making their own Mishloach Manot.. 

At first, Mishloach Manot were only sent to one person, to fulfil the commandment of 'portions.' That became very overwhelming for some families, who had just started cleaning out their fridge and preparing for Pesach. To quote Bernie: 'In the 1950s, we just found it easier to give our gift packages in bulk form... To tell the truth. We threw everything we could into that package. Anything we could get rid of. We had Pesach coming up, and getting the junk-food out of the house was paramount. Most of our sweets were Chametz. Anything leftover from last year, we sent it. Anything we found on sale, we sent it. We sent it all. Any candy we found, we threw it right into that bag. A lunch bag. It was clear that it was stuff we had to get out of the house. Leftovers? They were all in there. We even sent somebody a bit piece of chicken leg.'
Picking up on this, the world of wicker started making smaller Purim sized baskets. Hence, Mishloach Manot were something that were something you had to give to everybody in the community. Ending with the most important tradition of forgetting somebody, and offending them. I have witnessed new Purim enemies in my community every year. Tradition. 
And that is how we end up with small wicker and plastic packages, full of Easter eggs, a bunny, Hershey's Kisses in Christmas themed packaging, Hamentashen from Haddar that will last through next Purim, a thimble sized bottle of Johnny Walker, and plastic cling wrap, showing up at your door, from the Cohens, with a note written out to the Cohens, for the Cohens to have a Happy Purim. Not you.
The Cohens didn't need the Chametz either. And they didn't care enough about you, to write your name on it. Maybe they just wanted to gloat, that the Schwartzs thought about them and gave them stuff.

I don't know where the hundred gram chocolate bar tradition started. I wish I had a good answer as to the origins of that tradition. Bite size chocolate makes sense, as there are leftovers from Halloween, and thus, part of our tradition.
Maybe some wealthy Jews got involved and were giving the nonJewish kids full chocolate bars for Halloween. Be it what it is, I have never come across full size chocolate bars on sale. I've only found Halloween bite size on sale at The Christmas Tree Shop. For that matter, tradition of giving out small packages of Mike and Ikes in wicker has also found its way into many communities.
For that matter, bottles of Kedem grape juice in Mishloach Manot is also religiously questionable, as they are not tiny, and most of them are Kosher for Pesach; thus, there is no reason to get rid of them.
A large bottle of vodka may find its way into Mishloach Manot, when you have a friend who has too many kids. Even so, whiskey is better, as you may want to unload that for Pesach.

No tradition of fruit was ever part of Mishloach Manot, as that brings happiness to nobody. Dried fruit may be added, as sugar has been concentrated in those, and you have leftovers from Tu BShvat. That is how the dried fruit tradition started in the 1600s.

The Frum community decided to stick with wicker and plastic bowls. That is what you have today in the Frum community.
The less Frum communities have adapted the paper plate Hamentashen. Choosing origami over tradition. The good thing about the paper plate Hamentashen is that there's a limit to how much it holds. With the staples on the sides (staples is how Jews do origami- it holds together better that way), heightening it, there is a limit to how much overflow the plastic cling wrap can retain.
All communities now pick-up their Mishloach Manot accouterments at The Christmas Tree Shop. Another Jewish tradition began in the 1990s. 
Please note that you cannot make a decent Hamentash out of a plastic plate. They crack and it looks like the bakery messed up your pastry. Another note, while we are noting historical facts. Kinder eggs have been banned from Mishloach Manot, as the kids would rather eat the figurines than play with them.

No tradition of masks and groggers in your Mishloach Manot was ever developed. They are not edible and thus useless. What you see in the children Mishloach Manot bags are just for kids to enjoy the holiday and throw on the floor. If they had bite size masks, the tradition to add them to Mishloach Manot might have developed. 
Next time, we will delve into the traditions of the Purim kid bags that come in cone form. We will also research when cleaning began. We believe modern day cleaning up began with the first children leaving their wrappers on the floor in the year 118 CE.

Many have asked about the tradition of sending cake and pancake mixes. That is forbidden. It is not enjoyable to have to cook. The commandment is to be happy, and that happens with pre-made food. Though it's not tradition to send brisket, as it brings more Simcha (happiness) to eat it oneself, it may be done. If you are wealthy and have somebody else cooking for you, it's fine to send brisket, along with the full chocolate bars.

The card has always caused problems. The tradition of having somebody's name attached to the recipient part of the Mishloach Manot was put there to ensure that Jews didn't get along. The ancient tradition made sense, when they would literally send Mishloach Manot through messengers. However, they stopped the tradition of sending the Mishloach Manot, in the year 1643, once they realized that the messengers were eating the chocolate on the way.

I am happy to answer any of your questions about Jewish history.